Study Date
by Heavenly Pearl
Summary: Even though he's no longer her teacher, Katsuya helps Kyoko prepare for her high school entrance exams.


Study Date

"Argh, this is too damn hard! It's making my head hurt!"

Tapping the eraser of my pencil against the table, I groaned as I reread the word problem for the third time in a row, the words making even less sense than they did the first time. Who cared how many origami swans Manami had to fold in order to make five for every girl in her year anyway? I would punch Manami's face in if she ever tried to give me such a stupid gift. Seriously, candy would be a much better choice.

Mmm…candy…

"Now, Miss No Eyebrows, this problem isn't that difficult," my tutor and former teacher Honda Katsuya said, bringing me back to attention as he reached over and tapped the problem on the page with his pointer finger. "You're just thinking too hard again."

"Or maybe I'm just too stupid to take the high school entrance exams," I retorted, tossing my pencil aside and leaning back in my chair. I didn't even bother pointing out my grown-in eyebrows anymore, knowing it wouldn't do any good. To him, I would always be Miss No Eyebrows, even if I let them grow to the size of furry caterpillars. "That's what you've been wanting to say, isn't it? That there's no chance in hell I'm ever going to pass the exam, so I might as well go back to my life of delinquency and rebellion?"

"Do you want me to tell you that?" he asked, showing no outward signs of anger or frustration. "After all, you were the one who decided you wanted to take the exams. You can stop whenever you like."

"Yeah, but…"

Annoyed, I sighed, my breath blowing up the hair that had fallen over my face. He always did this to me. Why did he always have to be so…him? Other grown-ups just yelled at me, but never Katsuya. He always treated me as if my opinions really mattered, like _I_ really mattered. It was…weird, but in a nice way.

"Why do you even bother with a hopeless case like me?" I asked, again reaching for my discarded pencil and twirling it absent-mindedly around my fingers like a baton, wishing it was a cigarette. A cigarette sounded good right about now, but Katsuya never let me smoke during our study sessions. Something about it being bad for my health, or something. I never did pay attention. "I mean, you're not even a student teacher anymore. Don't you have some drugs to push, or something?"

Katsuya chuckled. "You make me sound like a crack dealer, Miss No Eyebrows. You know I work at a pharmaceutical company now."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Like anybody would believe otherwise." Thinking of Katsuya dressed up like some of the dealers I knew from my Yankee days and talking rough, I cracked up. "Man, you wouldn't have lasted a day in the ranks. I would have chewed you up and spit you out if you were one of my girls."

"Is that a fact?"

"Of course it is. You're too damn polite for your own good."

"Thank you," he said, smiling that smile that always caused my heart to beat a little faster every time I saw it, even though I still rolled my eyes at him. For being such an intelligent man, Katsuya could be quite stupid sometimes.

"That wasn't a compliment," I informed him. "Anyway, you still haven't answered my question. Why did you offer to tutor me for the high school entrance exam? Is this some kind of mission for you -- rescue the poor, idiot Yankee girl and save her from her terrible life? Because I'm not some helpless damsel-in-distress, you know. I don't need your help. I can do this on my own."

"Oh, really?" He pointed to the word problem I still hadn't solved. "In that case, how many swans does Miss Manami have to fold for all the girls in her grade?"

Determined to prove myself, I pulled out a piece of scratch paper and began writing down figures. "Lessee…Class 3-A has fifteen students, Class 3-B has eighteen, Class 3-C has sixteen, Class 3-D has fourteen, and 3-E has eighteen. Add them all together and there are…eighty-one students altogether?" I glanced up, and, noticing Katsuya made no move to correct me, I continued. "So, if one-third of the students in her grade are male, that means two-thirds are female. Two-thirds of eighty-one would be…fifty-four girls, right?" Again, he didn't object to my figure. "Multiply that by five swans for each girl, and you get 270 origami swans and one very tired Manami," I answered proudly, satisfied with myself. The problem actually wasn't that hard, once I broke it up in more manageable pieces.

However, for a long moment, Katsuya remained silent, making me wonder if I had messed up, after all. Frowning, I reread the problem, making sure that I hadn't left any thing out or copied something wrong, but every thing appeared to be correct. I couldn't find a single mistake in my calculations.

"So?" I prodded, getting annoyed by his silence. "Am I right or not?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," he finally said, with a shake of his head and a slight smile on his lips. "I was just astounded by the fact that you actually got it right on the first try."

"Hey!" Insulted, I rose to my feet, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you calling me stupid, Honda? I don't have to take this, you know. I may be trying to be a better person, but I'm still a Yankee at heart. Why, I oughta punch the living dayli-- Hey, what's so funny?"

Across the table, Katsuya brought a hand to his mouth, trying unsuccessfully to hid his snickering. I realized then that he had baited me, knowing exactly how I would react. Annoyed, I rolled up my piece of scratch paper and lobbed it at him before slumping back down in my chair.

"That was not funny!"

"Sorry, sorry." He held his hands up in mock surrender. "You actually are quite intelligent, Miss No Eyebrows. I don't believe you will have any trouble passing the entrance exam if you keep studying as hard as you have been."

"Really?" Upon hearing that, I felt some of my anger fade away. I had been called a lot of things in my life -- stupid, unmotivated, lazy, and disrespectful were just a few of the nicer things -- but nobody ever called me intelligent before. I had to admit I rather liked it. "You really think I can pass the exam?" I asked, sitting back up. "Or are you just pushing my buttons again? Because if you are…"

"I'm not joking this time," Katsuya assured me. "Despite all the classes you've skipped, you can understand the lessons when you pay attention. I'm truly impressed with your progress."

Embarrassed, I hid my face behind my math textbook, pretending to concentrate on the next problem. The old Katsunuma Kyoko never did anything as ridiculous and idiotic as to blush over a guy's compliment like a love-struck teenager, but maybe that's what I was now. Funny, the thought didn't depress me as much as I thought it would.

And, come next April, if Katsuya said was true, I would be a high school student, something I never thought would happen to me, the Yankee girl who everybody, even my parents, had written off as a failure. In a way, I suppose he had rescued me, even if I had too much pride to admit it to him. If it wasn't for Honda Katsuya, I would still be running around with my gang, getting into trouble and throwing my pathetic life away.

If only I knew how he really felt about me… Peeking over the top of my textbook at Katsuya, I sighed. Was I just a project to him, someone he took pity on and decided to help chase a foolish dream? After all, I was eight years his junior, and Katsuya didn't seem like one of those perverts who lusted after teenage girls. Then again, he did call me pretty occasionally, and he had taken me out a couple of times while he was still teaching at my school. They weren't exactly dates, but close enough to the real thing to make me wonder if maybe he felt the same way about me that I felt about him.

_Gah! Love is even more confusing than mathematics_, I thought, shaking my head in order to clear away my thoughts of romance. This was no time to be thinking about such frivolous things, not when the entrance exams were right around the corner.

"Is something wrong, Miss No Eyebrows?" Katsuya asked, apparently noticing my distraction. "Do you need some help with the next problem?"

"No, no, I can do it," I said quickly, grabbing my pencil and getting back to work on my word problems. "And stop calling me that, will you? It's getting on my nerves. My name is Kyoko. KEE-OH-KO. Got it?"

He only smiled in response.

For the next thirty minutes, I managed to focus on my studies and successfully finished the rest of my practice problems. Unfortunately, that also meant the end of our tutoring session for the day. I dawdled as much as I could while getting my things together, wishing I could stay a little longer at the apartment that was beginning to feel more like a home than my own, but I hadn't brought much with me -- only my math text, notebook, and a large messenger bag to hide them in, in case I happened to run into one of my fellow gang members on the way home. I hadn't officially left yet, so if one of the girls found out I was studying for the entrance exams… Well, it wouldn't be pretty.

"So… I guess that's it for today," I said once I had finished packing, unable to keep the disappointment out of my voice, no matter how hard I tried.

"Yes, it is," Katsuya replied, walking me to the front door. It could have been my imagination, but I thought he seemed rather disappointed at the prospect as well. "Remember to review chapter fifteen for next weekend, and you may want to try a couple of the practice problems on page -- Oh!"

"What?"

Katsuya, who had been opening the door, stopped mid-way. Curious, I strained to look over his shoulder and saw that it was raining cats and dogs. I had noticed the gray, overcast skies on my way over, but I had hoped the rain would hold off until later.

"Damn," I cursed. "Now I'm going to get soaking wet."

"Didn't you bring an umbrella?"

I snorted. "Do I look like the type to carry an umbrella around? Besides, in that rain, an umbrella wouldn't do any good. I would still get wet anyway."

"I'm afraid I left my umbrella at the office, or I would lend it to you," Katsuya admitted with a sigh. "Well, you can't go out there in this weather. Why don't you stay for a while? I'll cook dinner."

I could hardly believe my good luck. "I can stay?" I asked like a little kid allowed to stay an extra hour at the park.

Katsuya chuckled. "Just until the storm passes." Closing the door behind him, he began heading toward the kitchen. "Is spaghetti fine with you?"

Spaghetti sounded delicious.

DISCLAIMER: "Fruits Basket" is the property of Takaya Natsuki.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This fic was written for the 15pairings community at LiveJournal, Theme: Rescue Me, as well as the .moon Autumn Challenge, Theme: School.


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